Saving the trees Part I (Moriah)

As you step onto the springy green turf beneath the tree, gold and silver light filters through its branches. The tree is huge, old, and tall. There are a number of knobbly places on its bark, and it looks as though it's about to sprout a face and speak to you. Before you know it, you're standing next to it, and as you look up into its branches, you hear strains of old stories and songs. Entranced, you press your ear to the rough bark. You sit in wonder as you listen to a golden tale of old. And this is the tale you hear.

The light is dim and our friends have gone. I pick up the first lilac, hold it close to my face, breathing in it's beautiful scent. I can hear the geese over head, heading toward their home. I head to my home also, stopping to say good night to my favorite tree and she answers with a slight whisper of leaves, "Good-Night", the birds cheep good night to each other as I enter the house, My mother calls me to go to bed, and as I climb into bed I think about who I am: "My name is Emily Mason , I'm the second oldest of four almost five, I am going on 10 years old. After all , I turned 9 a whole month ago!"
"Emily?" groaned a sleepy Pearl."Are you talking to yourself again? Go to sleep!"
"OK" I say, and then start talking again, but lots quieter." Pearl is after me, and Teddy (Well Ted, I guess) before me. after Pearl is Rachel, then Baby Rake (they asked Rachel, the three year -old). Now it is time to go to sleep." When I awoke, I could hear my tree calling to me:
"Emily, Emily, the story-tellers of the world are fading, they are loosing their imagination! You, your brother and two others must save everyone!"
"My brother?" I said softly so not to wake Pearl and Rachel." Teddy?"
"Yes!" said my tree. I got dressed hurriedly and then packed hurriedly. I packed:

• Two loaves of bread
• 1 1/2 egg salad
• my portable sewing machine
• a medium size tote bag of cloth
• More food
• a week worth of clothes for me(including 2 headbands, one brush, and 10 hair scrunchies)
• Teddy's allergy and asthma meds
• and my survival and first aid kits

All that in two back packs (and one medium tote bag) still with enough room for Ted's one week of clothes, which I ran up stairs to get, when I ran right into Ted. "We need to go, now!" he says. ''I know!" says I "You think I would get up at 4:30 in the morning for nothing? Come on!" After getting Ted's clothes in the back pack, I took one and my tote then, on my tree's advice, we rode the wind north.


You pull your slightly sore ear away from the bark. You cannot hear the whole tale today, but one day soon you will return. You walk away from the tree and ponder as you go back to your duties.